Forgiving Others as Christ Has Forgiven Us: Homily for the Eleventh Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Matthew 18:23-35

It is so easy to lose perspective on the circumstances of our lives and how we respond to them.  We are often so blinded by the limits of our perspective that we ignore the obvious and focus on matters of relatively little importance.  We fall prey to this temptation especially when our passions are inflamed to the point that we do not see ourselves or our neighbors clearly.  That is precisely what happened in the parable in today’s gospel reading.

The first servant begged for more time to pay an unbelievably large debt and his master responded with shocking mercy, forgiving the debt completely. But instead of sharing the mercy that he had received with a fellow servant who owed him much less, the man refused to show any compassion or patience at all.  He had the second servant put into prison until he could pay the full amount.  When the master heard what had happened, he had the first servant put in jail until he could repay the massive amount he owed.  Christ concludes the parable with these sobering words: “So also My heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

This parable presents an uncomfortable truth:  How we treat those who have wronged or offended us reveals the true state of our souls.  Unlike those who understand the faith in legalistic terms, Orthodox Christianity teaches that our Lord’s healing mercy transforms us as persons in relation to one another:  If we have embraced His forgiveness, then His gracious divine energies must permeate our lives.  He said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”  To become radiant with mercy to the point we do not limit our love only to people who treat us well is necessary to obey Christ’s commandment: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matt. 5: 44-48)

If we dare to call upon God’s forgiveness for our sins, we will condemn ourselves as hypocrites if we refuse to forgive others.  He is infinitely holy and we are each the chief of sinners against the Father Who sent His Son for the salvation of the world. (Jn. 3:17)   As those who ask for mercy beyond what we could possibly deserve, how could we possibly be justified in refusing to forgive someone else?   The God-Man enables us to become like Him in holiness, and He forgave even those who rejected, betrayed, and killed Him.  Since Christ has identified Himself with even the lowliest people, how we treat those who have offended us is how we treat our Lord.  Everyone is a living icon of God. As St. John wrote, “If anyone says ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother, he is a liar.  For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”   (1 Jn 4:20) When we refuse to forgive others, we show not only a lack of love for them, but also for the Savior.

Despite our best intentions, forgiveness of those who have wronged us deeply rarely comes quickly or easily.  Forgiveness is not simply a matter of what we say or how we act, but roots in our hearts, even as murder roots in anger and adultery roots in lust.  Christ calls us to share in His life so fully that we acquire the purity of heart that comes from the healing of the corruption that darkens our spiritual vision.    A necessary step in embracing that healing is to mindfully turn away from obsessing about the wrongs of others and holding grudges. We gain the strength to do so by opening our hearts to the healing power of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul wrote, “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23) As St. Siluoan the Athonite taught, “One can only love one’s enemies through the grace of the Holy Spirit.” And “He who does not love his enemies, does not have God’s grace.”

How we respond to those who have wronged us reveals the true state of our souls in a way that goes beyond simplistic distortions of the Christian faith.  Regardless of our opinions about anything, how right we may be in any disagreement, or what warm feelings we may have about Christ, if we are so enslaved to the passions of pride and anger that we hate, condemn, and refuse to forgive anyone, then we reject our Lord because we refuse to embrace His gracious healing to the point that we conform our character to His.  We so easily become blind to the image of God in those we condemn or resent due to our own passions.  Doing so is nothing less than repeating Cain’s murder of Abel in our hearts.   Apart from the healing power of the Holy Spirit, there is simply no escape from slavery to an endless cycle of resentment and retribution that leads only to the grave.  We do not have to look very closely at our society and world to see the tragic results of living that way. 

The Savior endured the full consequences of such depravity in His crucifixion and death to lead us from the grave to the glory of the heavenly kingdom through His resurrection on the third day.  He abides in our hearts through the Holy Spirit through Whom we are able to cry out to God “Abba, Father,” for we are not slaves, but beloved children of God, heirs to all the promises to Abraham through faith in Christ. (Gal. 4:6) In order to receive His healing strength, we must open ourselves as fully as possible to the power of the Holy Spirit.   He is “everywhere present and fills all things” and we have received Him personally in the holy mystery of Chrismation.  In order to acquire the fruits of the Spirit, we must actively cooperate with God’s grace by struggling to grow in humility, which means learning to see ourselves as we truly are.  That is what the first servant in today’s parable obviously lacked.  When we know in our hearts that we are the chief of sinners and recognize that our very existence and all our blessings are dependent upon the undeserved mercy of the Lord, then we will no longer be driven to condemn anyone else.

Growing in humility is the only way for us to find healing for our passions, for our disordered desires ultimately root in the pride of refusing to see ourselves clearly.  To grow in humility, we must ask forgiveness of those we have wronged and quickly embrace the struggle to forgive those who have wronged us.  When the wrongs of others come to mind, we must pray for God to forgive our sins through their prayers and to grant what is best for them according to His love.  Instead of brooding over their offenses, we must mindfully turn the thoughts of our hearts to God through the Jesus Prayer as we ask for healing from all the ways that our sins have marred the beauty of our souls.

As in all things, we must be mindful, keeping a close watch on our thoughts and desires as we refuse to welcome into our hearts anything that would hinder our healing. The more that we acquire the humility to see ourselves as we truly are before the Lord, the more we will convey to others the same mercy that we have received from Him. To gain the spiritual strength to forgive others as we have been forgiven is not something that happens in an instant but is the fruit of the ongoing journey to embrace the healing power of the Holy Spirit.  No matter where we are on this path or how many times we stumble upon it, we must not despair but instead persist in fulfilling our high calling to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matt. 5: 44-45)   In Christ Jesus, our calling is nothing less than to love as God has loved us. 

 

 

True Faith Comes Through a Broken Heart: Homily for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost & Tenth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 4:9-16; Matthew 17:14-23 

            We do not have to look hard today to find distortions of the way of Christ that have nothing to do with humbling ourselves before the Lord as we take up our crosses to follow Him.  It is very dangerous to accept such corruptions of discipleship, for there is simply no way to unite ourselves to Him in faith and faithfulness without allowing our hearts to be broken. We continue today to celebrate the Dormition or “falling asleep” of the Theotokos, who after her death was the first to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the Kingdom of Heaven.  St. Symeon said to the Theotokos at the presentation of the 40-day old Savior in the Temple, “a sword will pierce through your own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” (Lk. 2:35) We cannot begin to imagine the pain that she experienced as she saw her Son and God rejected and crucified before her own eyes.  She never abandoned Him and surely no one rejoiced at His resurrection as did His virgin mother.  

            Regardless of how young or old our children are, the hearts of parents will be broken for them time and time again.  The same is true of our relationships with our spouses and others with whom we are deeply united in love, for their sorrows become our own.  Most of us have to learn the hard way that those we love are free persons whom we must not attempt to control or make in our own image.  No one involved in such relationships is perfect and we must learn to bear the burdens that we present to one another patiently. 

The father of the epileptic boy in today’s gospel reading stands out as a shining example of how we may lift up our broken hearts for our loved ones to Christ in true humility. This poor man sorrowed over the sufferings of his son, whose seizures put his life at risk by causing him to fall into both fire and water.  He had asked the disciples to heal him, but they lacked the strength to do so.  The Lord spoke truthfully about the spiritual weakness of those who followed Him most closely: “O faithless and perverse generation, how long am I to be with you? How long am I to bear with you? Bring him here to me.”  Then He healed the young man.  The disciples, being unaware of why they were unable to be of help in this situation, asked the Lord about it.  His response must have been hard to hear: “Because you have no faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you. This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting.” 

            As hard as it is for us understand, the attachment the disciples had to Christ at this point was not true faith in Him.  Since the Savior said that “This kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting,” they must have lacked even the most basic spiritual disciplines.  The passage ends with Christ foretelling His Passion: “The Son of man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him, and He will rise on the third day.”  All the gospels indicate that the disciples did not expect the Messiah to die and rise from the grave. They shared the dominant hope for a military champion to defeat the Roman forces of occupation and set up an earthly kingdom, in which they expected to have places of prominence.  Remember that the Lord said, “Get behind me, Satan!” to Peter, the head disciple, when he rejected the prediction of His cross and empty tomb. (Mk. 8:33) The hearts of the disciples would have to be broken through their denial and abandonment of the Savior Who went to the Cross for them finally to become receptive to a Messiah very different from what they had expected.

            St. Paul dealt with such distortions of the way of Christ in the church at Corinth where some built themselves up in their own minds in contrast to the humble obedience characteristic of true apostles.  In contrast to the pretensions of his opponents, Paul wrote that true apostles are fools for Christ, weak, held in disrepute, hungry, thirsty, homeless, and persecuted.  They were obviously not out for praise, glory, or self-satisfaction, but manifested in their sufferings the true way of the Lord as they blessed and forgave their tormentors.  That is why Paul could say with integrity, “be imitators of me.”  By enduring the pain and struggle of a heart broken for love of God and neighbor, he was healed of his passions and became a living icon of Christ.   

The heart of the father in today’s gospel lesson had already been broken by his recognition that he could not heal or protect his son from seizures that could cause his death.  Years of caring for the boy had revealed his own weaknesses and limitations.  The common hopes of parents to see their family lines flourish in future generations rang hollow for him now.  He struggled to think that he could keep his son from dying an untimely death and he was disappointed yet again when the disciples could not heal him.  In Mark’s account of this encounter, we learn that the “father cried out and said with tears, ‘Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!’ in response to the Savior’s words ‘If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.’ (Mk. 9:23-24) In the midst of this man’s brokenness and pain, he knew that his faith was far from perfect.  He had acquired the humility to see the weakness of his faith.  His heart would not be healed by pretending he was something he was not.  He cried honestly to the Lord from the depths of his soul and the Lord heard his plea.  

            As King David wrote in Psalm 50, “a contrite and humble heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise.” Our hearts will become contrite and humble when we confront how we have marred the beauty of our souls and refused to fulfill our calling to become like God in holiness.  St. Mark the Ascetic wrote that “Remembrance of God is pain of the heart endured in the spirit of devotion.”  We will experience pain in our hearts when we persistently open even our deepest struggles and the darkest crevices of our souls to the healing of Christ. We will then know the infinite distance between the brilliant holiness to which we are called and the dark corruption that festers within us. Doing so requires mindfully dying daily to the slavery of our passions and reorienting the desires of our hearts for fulfillment in God.  We must pray, fast, serve our neighbors sacrificially, and otherwise do all that we have the strength to do in taking up our crosses if we are to follow the Theotokos in the eternal joy of the Kingdom.  

            Remember, however, that even the most conscientious performance of spiritual disciplines lacks the power, in and of itself, to bring healing to our hearts, to our loved ones, or our world.  Even as the Lord chided the disciples for their lack of faith, prayer, and fasting, He foretold His great Self-offering on the Cross and victory over death through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  He alone is the Savior, but we open ourselves to receive His healing by calling to Him in humility from the depths of our broken hearts.  They will be broken when we honestly engage the struggle to turn away from addiction to the self-centered desire that corrupts our relationships even with those we love most in this life.  It is only then that we will be able to say with the brokenhearted father, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”  It is only then that we will be able to entrust our hearts to Christ with integrity.  Otherwise, we will remain spiritual weaklings who are captive to our illusions of self-righteousness and our desires that our children, spouses, family members, and friends play the roles that we have assigned them.  If our hearts are not broken by the weight of our own sins and purified by suffering love for our neighbors, we will never gain the spiritual integrity of the father in today’s gospel reading.  But, thanks be to God, that is possible for us all, if we will only take up our crosses as best we can each day.  Doing so will break our hearts in many ways, but that is necessary if—like the Theotokos—we are to learn to entrust ourselves and all our relationships and attachments to Christ, Who taught that we must “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” (Matt. 6:33)   By enduring the struggle to focus on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God, we will open our hearts to receive the grace necessary to follow her into the blessedness of the eternal joy for which He created us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't Drown in a Sea of Despair: Homily for the Ninth Sunday after Pentecost & Ninth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

1 Corinthians 3:9-17: Matthew 14:22-34

It is so easy for us today to become so focused on our worries and fears that we start to sink into a deep sea of despair.  We live in a time of almost constant distraction in which we are bombarded with images and messages that make us anxious, angry, and depressed.  We have been formed to ground our sense of wellbeing in serving cultural standards of success, including what we possess, how we look, and whether national events are unfolding in ways that we like.  Even in the richest and most powerful country in the world, people who bear the image and likeness of God will never find true satisfaction in the pursuit of such insubstantial goals.  Even those who seem to have achieved them know that they can disappear in the blink of an eye.  If the horizons of our hope extend no further than that, then we will never have any true peace in our souls.  

 Today’s gospel lesson provides a vivid example of what happens when we attempt to ground ourselves on the weak foundation of such illusions.  St. Peter began to sink like a stone in a raging sea when he turned his focus away from the Lord to fear about where he stood in relation to the wind and the waves.  By his own nature, there was simply no way that Peter could have avoided drowning, but he called out “Lord, save me!”  That is precisely what the Savior did by reaching out to Peter and rescuing him as He said, “O man of little faith, why did you doubt?”  The stress of the storm revealed the weakness of Peter’s faith, which is not surprising because he had gotten himself into this situation by foolishly putting Christ to the test, saying “Lord, if it is You, bid me come to You on the water.”   By his lack of humble trust, Peter literally got himself in well over his head. He had to learn the hard way that he had no other foundation, no other basis or hope for his life, than Jesus Christ.  If left to his own devices, he would have sunk like a stone into a watery grave.    

That is a destination completely different from the one to which our Lord calls us. The God-Man came to do nothing less than to transfigure us in holiness with His gracious divine energies as the uniquely beautiful persons He created us to become.  The Savior called His disciples to “be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”  (Matt. 5:48) He cited the Psalms: “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” (Psalm 82:6; Jn. 10:34) While we remain human beings by nature, Christ enables us to become like Him by our personal participation in His grace. That is why theosis is an eternal process, for God’s holiness is truly infinite.  We must not pretend to be isolated individuals looking for fulfillment in the conventional terms of this world, for Christ calls us to become persons united in love with Him and fellow members His Body, the Church. Such uniting love should transform our relationships with everyone we encounter and overcome all merely human divisions that do nothing but enslave people even further to their passions.  We become more fully our true selves not in self-centered isolation or by identifying with divisive factions over against other groups, but through growing in loving relationship with all who bear His image and likeness.  

The contrast between humanity seeking fulfillment on its own terms and our Savior’s restoration and fulfillment of the human person is starker than the difference between night and day.  It is truly the difference been death and life, between sinking to the bottom of a dark sea of sin and becoming resplendent with the radiant glory of God. Our Lord has conquered death, Hades, and the tomb in His glorious resurrection on the third day.  His divine glory has flooded even the darkest abyss, even the most tragic and painful pits of despair into which we can fall.  He has liberated us from slavery to the fear of death as the God-Man Who shares His eternal life with weak, fearful, anxious, and confused people like us.  When we call out to Him with faith from the depths of our hearts, as Peter did when he began to sink, He will illumine our darkened souls to receive His healing light.   

As St. Paul taught, “no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.”  No one and nothing else can have that place in our lives, for to ground our existence elsewhere is to commit idolatry.  No matter how virtuous or appealing any project or ideal of this world may appear, it cannot keep us from sinking under the weight of our own sins.  The darkness roots so deeply within us all, both personally and collectively, and nothing but the brilliant glory of the Lord can overcome it.  Whether we know it or not, we inevitably sink like stones into the abyss whenever we make the foundation of our lives anything or anyone else than the One Who has conquered death itself.  All good things have their place in God’s creation and we should despise none of them, but we will not fully embrace the healing of the New Adam until we ground every dimension of our life on Him, our one true foundation. 

 As St. Paul teaches, we are by no means self-made, self-sustaining, or self-defining.   Our true identity is not determined by any merely human accomplishment, ability, or affiliation.   Instead, “we are God’s fellow workers…God’s field, God’s building…God’s temple… God’s Spirit dwells in you.”  Christ has made us members of His own Body, the Church.  The very foundation of our life, of our identity, and of our hope is in Him, not in our achievements, possessions, characteristics, or inclinations.   In order to avoid sinking like stones amidst the raging seas of our passions, we must mindfully turn away from whatever tempts us to reject our true vocation to become ever more beautiful living icons of God.  If we surrender to those temptations, we will become just like Peter in being so overwhelmed by the wind and waves of worry and fear that we will turn our focus away from Christ.

 Let us, then, remain constantly on guard against the temptation to entrust the meaning and purpose of our lives to anything or anyone other than the Lord.  There is no way to do that without cultivating the habits of daily prayer and mindful protection of our hearts from embracing thoughts and desires that fuel our passions.  The next time that you start sinking in the winds and waves, focus your attention on Him, as Peter did, saying “Lord, save me!”  He alone can raise us up from drowning in the sea of our passions. We also must not pretend that we are so strong spiritually than we can simply wait until there is a crisis; no, we must attend to the health of our souls every day.  We all remain too weak before our passions to focus fully on “the one thing needful” of hearing and obeying the Word of God.

 That is why we should all take a close look at our lives during this Dormition Fast and identify the habits of thought, word, and deed that keep us so distracted, confused, and weak that we easily sink like stones under their weight. We need to build new habits to replace them, such as limiting our exposure to images, messages, and media that lead us to hope in the passing things of this world.  We should replace them with edifying spiritual reading and listening to Orthodox chant and spiritual commentary.  Instead of worrying about this or that in the future or despairing about matters beyond our control in the world, we should devote our attention to grounding ourselves on Christ in the present and to serving Him in our neighbors who need our assistance and companionship. 

            The path to transfiguration in holiness is open to us all and exemplified most fully by the Theotokos, the woman who was the first receive Christ as His virgin mother and then to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the heavenly kingdom upon her death.  As we fast and ask for her prayers, let us entrust ourselves so fully to her Son that we may join her in saying with every ounce of our being, “Behold the servant of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  If we remain so grounded on our one true foundation, we will never drown in the sea of despair.   

 

 

 

Preparing for the Transfiguration and the Dormition: Homily for the Eighth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

 Matthew 14:14-22

            Early August is an especially rich time in the life of the Church.  On August 6, we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor, when the spiritual eyes of Peter, James, and John were opened to behold His divine glory to the extent possible for human beings.  For the first two weeks of this month, we fast and pray in preparation for the Feast of the Dormition (or “falling asleep”) of the Theotokos, when she became the first to follow her Son—body, soul, and spirit-- into the eternal life of the Kingdom of Heaven.  Both these great feasts manifest our sublime vocation as “partakers of the divine nature” by grace.  As Christ said to Nathanael, “You shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” (John 1:51)

In order to become transfigured in holiness, we must respond with active obedience to the Savior’s calling in our lives.  Of course, we would usually rather avoid accepting that responsibility like the disciples did when the Lord said concerning the thousands of hungry people who had followed Him into the wilderness, “They need not go away; you give them something to eat.” Since it was obvious that they did not have the provisions to feed all those people, they had asked Christ to “send the crowds away to go into the villages and buy food for themselves.”  The disciples had only five loaves of bread and two fish, an absurdly small amount of food for a large crowd.  But they still obeyed when “He said, ‘Bring them here to Me.’”  The Savior then “blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.  And they all ate and were satisfied.  And they took up twelve baskets full of the broken pieces left over.  And those who ate were about five thousand men, besides women and children.”

             The Lord revealed His identity as the Messiah that day by miraculously supplying food for hungry Jews in the desert like manna from heaven in the Old Testament.  The five loaves remind us of the five books of law in the Hebrew Bible, while the two fish recall the two tablets of God’s commandments received by Moses.  From these small amounts of food came such an abundance that twelve basketsful were leftover, which reminds us of the twelve tribes of Israel.  Five thousand men and their families were fed, which again recalls the five Old Testament books of law. The Lord miraculously satisfied the hunger of a multitude in a way that showed He fulfills the law, the prophets, and the promises to Abraham, which are now extended to all who respond to Him with humble faith. (Matt. 5:17)   

     Christ showed the disciples and us that we must actively offer ourselves and our resources to become instruments of His salvation in this world, regardless of our weaknesses and inadequacies.  Adam and Eve did the opposite by disobeying the Lord’s command and indulging their self-centered desires. They thus refused to fulfill their vocations as living icons of God and pursued a path leading only to despair and death.  The Savior offered Himself on the Cross in order to liberate us from such a depraved state through His glorious resurrection on the third day.  We unite ourselves to His offering when we lift up our hearts and offer bread and wine for the celebration of the Eucharist in the Divine Liturgy.  He has restored and fulfilled the original purpose of food and drink in order to bring us into the eternal communion of love shared by the Persons of the Holy Trinity. He nourishes us with His Body and Blood such that His life becomes ours as participants in the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.  

When “He looked up to Heaven, and blessed, and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds,” the Savior provided an image of the Eucharist.  Had the disciples not offered what little food they had collected to Christ, the crowd would have gone hungry.  If no one offers the bread and wine for the celebration of the Divine Liturgy, no one is nourished by the Eucharist.  By miraculously satisfying so many with so little, Christ revealed what it means for us to live eucharistically as we offer ourselves and our resources for the fulfillment of His gracious purposes for the world.  We must not offer only bread and wine or think that communion with Christ concerns only what we do on Sunday morning.  To be truly in communion with Christ means living every day as those who share in His life and are being transfigured in holiness.  No matter how tiny or inadequate our offerings may seem, He multiplies them to accomplish His gracious purposes for the world.   

During this period of the Dormition Fast, we marvel at how an obscure Palestinian Jewish girl freely offered herself to become the living temple of God when she said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord.  Let it be to me according to your word.”  By offering herself fully in obedience, she became the Theotokos, the first to receive Christ into her life and, upon her death, the first to follow Him as a whole, embodied person into the heavenly kingdom.  No one forced her to do so, even as her Son did not force the disciples and does not force us.  Her obedience was not limited to a one-time event but continued throughout the course of her life, including when she stood by the foot of the Cross as her Son died.  Likewise, the disciples’ offering was not limited to the small amount of food they handed over on one day, for they had already obeyed His command to leave behind their occupations and families to follow Christ.  Had they refused to abandon their fishing nets, Peter, James, and John would not have been on Mt. Tabor where they beheld the divine glory of the Lord at the Transfiguration.  The only way to participate in Christ’s transfiguration of the human person in holiness is to persist in offering ourselves to Him in obedience each day as best we can, no matter how insignificant or difficult the particular offering may seem.  

            In order to gain the spiritual strength to do so, we must be obedient in the basic spiritual disciplines of the Christian life, including opening our hearts to God in focused prayer and reading the Scriptures each day, keeping a close watch on the thoughts that we accept in our hearts, and fasting in ways appropriate to our health and life circumstances. We must struggle to forgive those who have wronged us, ask forgiveness from those we have wronged, and give generously to help the needy and support the ministries of the Church.  We must repent of our sins as we receive Christ’s forgiveness in Confession, which we should all do regularly.  And we should receive our Lord’s Body and Blood as often as we can with proper spiritual preparation. 

That is how we may become transfigured in holiness so that we will have the strength to obey His command: “You give them something to eat.”  That is not a calling for a select few, but the Lord’s calling to us all.  In ways beyond our full understanding, the free obedience of an obscure Jewish girl was necessary for the coming of the Messiah.  In her Dormition and translation to heaven, the Lord has given us a radiant sign of our salvation.  We must each bow before the mystery of how her obedience, and ours, plays a unique role in making the world brilliant with the Lord’s holiness and drawing others into the life of the kingdom.  Let us refuse to be distracted from fulfilling our vocation to be transfigured in holiness as we offer the loaves and fishes of our lives for Him to bless and multiply as He sees fit. Let us “lift up our hearts” as we offer every dimension of our life and world for the healing and fulfillment that He alone can bring.    

 

 

Homily for the Sixth Sunday of Matthew with Commemoration of the Glorious Prophet Elijah in the Orthodox Church

James 5:10-20: Matthew 9: 1-8

Many people think of Christianity as a collection of religious rules that tell us what to do and what not to do.  The problem with a religion of law is that, while it points us in the direction of how we should behave, it does not give us the spiritual strength necessary to follow the rules. A faith that is simply a form of legalism leads inevitably to the frustration of never being able to fulfill its commandments.  A common way of coping with that frustration is to turn the focus away from our own failings by hypocritically condemning others for theirs.  It is no wonder that those who encounter such distorted forms of the faith typically have little interest in it.  It is not surprising that those who distort the faith in this way do not find healing for their spiritual infirmities.

In today’s gospel reading, Jesus Christ demonstrated that He did not come simply to give us a new set of laws to obey according to our own moral strength.  He showed that He did not come merely to deliver us from the guilt of falling short of obeying divine commandments.  He forgave the sins of the paralyzed man, thus manifesting His divinity in a way that scandalized religious leaders.   But He also revealed that His salvation is not defined in legalistic terms, as though the whole point of the Christian life were to be declared innocent in a court of law for certain offenses.  If that were the case, there would have been no point in healing the paralyzed man, for he could have been acquitted of his sins while remaining unable to move. 

The man’s paralysis is a vivid icon of the state of humanity cast out of Paradise, corrupted by our refusal to pursue the fulfillment of our calling to become like God in holiness.  By disorienting ourselves from our true vocation and looking for fulfillment through gratifying our self-centered desires, we have diminished ourselves to the point of becoming as weak as the man unable to get up off the ground.  Christ responded to him with healing mercy, granting the poor man strength and restoration beyond what he could ever have given himself, no matter how hard he tried.  In response to the Savior’s gracious therapy, the man obeyed the command to stand up, pick up his bed, and walk home.  Apart from this personal encounter with the Lord, the man would have remained enslaved to debilitating weakness, but the Savior’s healing restored his ability to move forward in a life suitable for a person who bears the image and likeness of God.

Whenever we ask for the Lord’s mercy, we are asking for the same therapy that He extended to the paralyzed man.  We ask Him to heal our wounds, restore our strength, and help us become participants in the eternal joy for which He created us.  We ask Him to deliver us from the wretched, corrupt state of being so weak before our passions that we feel helpless before our familiar temptations, no matter how much we despise them. We ask Him to help us find healing from the ingrained habits of thought, word, and deed that serve only to make us and our neighbors miserable.  We even dare to ask Him to make us “partakers of the divine nature” who share by grace in His victory over death, which is the wages of sin.  

To rise up, take up our beds, and walk home requires obedience to Christ’s commands, but not a legalistic obedience in the sense of following a code for its own sake.  Instead, this obedience is like following the guidance of a physician or therapist who makes clear to us what we must do in order to regain health and function for our bodies.  Christ embodies true humanity and has made us participants in His restoration and fulfillment of our vocation to become like God in holiness.  His commandments are not arbitrary or superficial but go to the heart and require our healing as whole persons in communion with God.

The Saints are inspirational examples of what it looks like for people to become healed of the paralysis of sin amidst all the temptations and problems presented by this world of corruption.  Today we commemorate the glorious Prophet Elijah who gained the strength to speak so boldly in opposition to the idolatry of Ahab and Jezebel, to cause a drought for three years and six months by his prayers, and to call down fire from heaven in a confrontation with the pagan priests of Baal. Elijah miraculously multiplied the flour and oil of the widow of Zarephath and raised her son from the dead.  When he passed his mantle of prophecy to Elisha, he divided the Jordan river and then was taken up into heaven in a fiery chariot.  He appeared with Moses at the Transfiguration of the Lord on Mount Tabor. 

The Archangel Gabriel said to Zechariah that John the Baptist “will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” (Lk. 1:17) Christ affirmed the close association of Elijah and John the Forerunner, saying “To be sure, Elijah comes and will restore all things. But I tell you, Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but have done to him everything they wished. In the same way the Son of Man is going to suffer at their hands.” (Matt. 17: 11-12)

It may be tempting to think that a great saint like Elijah was a spiritual superhero who never struggled with fear, doubt, or any kind of weakness.  The truth is very different.  He literally ran for his life when told that Jezebel was out to kill him and then prayed that the Lord would take his life, despairing that “I am no better than my fathers!” (3 Kingdoms 19:4) In response to God’s question as to what he was doing hiding in a cave at Mount Horeb, Elijah complained that “I alone am left” as one faithful in Israel and that “they seek to take my life.”  Then there was a great wind, an earthquake, and a fire, but the Lord was not in any of them.  He spoke to Elijah, however, in a “gentle breeze” or a “still small voice,” asking again why he was there.  The Lord responded again to Elijah’s complaint that he was alone, saying “I have reserved seven thousand in Israel, all whose knees have not bowed to Baal…” (3 Kingdoms 19: 10-18) Even the great prophet Elijah had to be reminded not to fall into despair and self-pity and to keep his spiritual perception finely tuned to hear the Word of the Lord.

As St. James wrote, “Elijah was a man of like nature with ourselves and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought forth its fruit.”  That is precisely why he and all the Saints are such great examples for us of what it means to gain the spiritual strength to rise, take up our beds, and walk.  They experienced the weaknesses, challenges, and temptations that are our common lot in this world of corruption.  Nonetheless, the Old Testament saints took up the struggle to live in faith and hope for the fulfillment of God’s gracious promises that is ours in Jesus Christ.  As we read in Hebrews 11:39-40, “And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”

As those who have become heirs to the fullness of the promise to Abraham by faith in Christ, we have no more business lying flat on our backs in spiritual paralysis than did Elijah hiding out in a cave and bemoaning how he alone had been faithful.  Like Elijah, we must cultivate the spiritual sensitivity to hear the “gentle breeze” or “still small voice” of the Lord and not to be distracted by the winds, the earthquakes, and the fires of our life and world.  We do not worship pagan deities like Baal, but it is so easy to corrupt our pursuit of the Christian life in ways that simply serve our passions and keep us paralyzed before them.  Our true calling is very different and requires the spiritual clarity gained by mindful prayer, fasting, and generosity to our neighbors.  As St. James wrote, we must confess our sins and “pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects.”  He also taught that “Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” (Jas. 1:27) None of this is new, trendy, or easy, but it is how we must persistently struggle to live if we are to gain the spiritual strength to obey the command of the Lord to each and every one of us:  Rise, take up your bed, and go home. That is what Elijah the Prophet did and it is what we must all do for the salvation of our souls.

 

Homily for the Fourth Sunday After Pentecost & Fourth Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

Romans 6:18-23; Matthew 8: 5-13

Too many Christians are apparently blind to how radically Christ challenged the conventional social assumptions of first-century Palestine and of life as we know it today.   Contrary to all expectations for the Jewish Messiah, He asked for a drink of water from a Samaritan woman with a scandalous personal history, engaged in His longest recorded conversation with her, and then spent two days in a Samaritan village.  In doing so, He identified Himself with people viewed as heretical enemies and treated a woman who was a complete outcast as a beloved child of God.  He invited Himself to the home of Zacchaeus, a corrupt tax-collector for the Roman army of occupation.  And as we read today, He not only healed the servant of a Roman centurion, but said of this man, “Truly, I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.”  The centurion was an officer of the pagan Roman Empire that controlled the Holy Land. The Jews expected the Messiah to destroy people like him, not to praise their faith.   

The Lord’s statement that the faith of this Roman soldier was superior to that of any of the Jews surely seemed foolish, treasonous, and blasphemous according to conventional standards.  With those words, He made clear that nationality and ethnicity are not spiritually determining factors, for “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness…”  Though it was commonly overlooked at the time, God’s promises to Abraham were for the blessing of “all the nations,” not merely one group of people.  These promises have been fulfilled in Jesus Christ such that all with faith in Him are now heirs to their fulfillment as His beloved sons and daughters.  (Gen. 22:18; Gal. 3:8-9) 

Our Lord’s ministry had nothing at all to do with setting up an earthly kingdom in Palestine or anywhere else for any group of people.  Pursuing such worldly power was a temptation that He rejected.  Before the Savior began His public ministry, “the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to Him, ‘All these things I will give You if You will fall down and worship me.’  Then Jesus said to him, ‘Away with you, Satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only you shall serve.’” (Matt. 4:8-10) The crowds welcomed Christ to Jerusalem as a conquering hero on Palm Sunday because they thought He was their military liberator from Roman rule.  When it became clear that He was an entirely different kind of Messiah with no interest in launching an armed rebellion, they yelled, “Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!” a few days later (Lk 23:21).   The Savior then told Pontius Pilate that His kingdom was not of this world, which is why His followers would not take up arms to defend Him. (Jn. 18:36)

The kingdom which Christ proclaimed may well appear just as foolish today according to conventional standards, for it has no geographical boundaries and is not a nation-state; it does not require any particular ethnicity, culture, or language for its citizens.  It is not focused on the interests of any faction or group.  Even as the promises to the descendants of Abraham have been extended to all with faith in Christ, the ancient hope for an earthly realm in a particular part of the world has been fulfilled in the Body of Christ in which all may participate even now as a foretaste of the blessedness of the kingdom of heaven, regardless of where they live or their cultural or ethnic heritage.  As St. Peter wrote to the early Christians, “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.” (1 Pet. 2: 9-10) As Orthodox Christians, we know that we share in the life of our Lord by His grace, not by the power of any earthly realm or leader in any part of the world, including our own.

We pray for God’s blessings upon our nation and all the nations and peoples of the world.  We give thanks for all the blessings that are ours, especially our rights and freedoms, and we must be good stewards of them, not as ends in themselves, but as opportunities to offer all the good things of this life for purification and fulfillment in Christ.  Remember that the chief priests told Pilate “We have no king but Caesar!” as they called for the Messiah’s crucifixion (Jn. 19:15).  The pagan Romans later killed Christians because they would not worship the gods believed to preserve their empire, including Caesar.   Our Lord and His martyrs looked like fools, or worse, to those obsessed with serving the rulers of this world. We are certainly not immune today from the temptation to reject our Lord and His Cross by giving our primary allegiance to those who seem to serve our desires for power, domination, and vengeance.  This temptation, which is rooted in the fear of death, is all the more dangerous when we convince ourselves that we are actually serving Christ as we pursue the nationalistic and political paths that He so clearly rejected.       

Obviously, our Lord did not view the Roman centurion according to conventional earthly terms, even though He was well aware of the man’s role in serving the empire under the authority of which He would be crucified.  By all outward appearances, they would have been sworn enemies, but Christ did not see him that way or require him to quit the Roman army or become a Jew.  He simply marveled at the centurion’s faith, granted his request, and noted that “many will come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.”  

Our hope is to be among those “from east and west” who are gathered into the kingdom of heaven by our Lord’s gracious mercy, which we receive through faith in Him, regardless of our national, ethnic, or political identity.   Even as not all the descendants of Abraham fulfilled their calling to receive the Messiah in faith, we cannot blithely assume that being Orthodox Christians somehow guarantees us the blessedness of the kingdom or makes us justified in condemning anyone.  The greatest obstacle to the healing of our souls is pride, which often manifests itself in the belief that we are somehow better and more deserving of God’s favor than others.  Such pride is the deadly enemy of true faith, but the centurion somehow managed to avoid that trap, despite the high standing given to him by his rank in the armed forces of the mighty Roman Empire.  He humbled himself, saying, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.”  Even as Christ did not see him as an enemy, he did not see Christ as either a threat to the empire or someone inferior by worldly standards.  Quite the contrary, the centurion had somehow acquired the spiritual clarity to know where he stood before the Lord Who would heal his servant in such a miraculous fashion. Even as the centurion, tax-collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, demon-possessed Gentiles, and other outcasts received Christ in humble faith, we must never presume to declare that anyone is beyond His love or cannot find healing in Him.   We must gain the spiritual health necessary to treat every person we encounter as a living icon of Christ, regardless of national identity, political affiliation, or any other human characteristic.  Any Christianity that does not call people to do so is unworthy of its name.

Like the Roman centurion, let us entrust ourselves to Christ with such humility that our passions do not keep us from knowing that we stand before Him in need of constant mercy, no less than everyone else.  Instead of fueling the pride that so easily blinds us spiritually and leads us to idolatry, let us unite ourselves so fully to Christ that His character becomes evident in us.  Then we will manifest His mercy and compassion in ways unconstrained by devotion to any of the false gods of this world as we learn to love even strangers and enemies as God loves us.  That is not and never has been the easy, popular, and conventional way of living, but it is clearly the way of the Savior Who conquered death itself through His Cross and glorious resurrection on the third day.  It is only by uniting ourselves to Him in faith and faithfulness that we may hope, along with that blessed centurion, to be among those who “come from east and west and sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven.”  

 

Sunday of All Saints of Antioch & Second Sunday of Matthew in the Orthodox Church

 

 Acts 11:19-30; Matthew 4:18-23

           We celebrate today for the first time in our Archdiocese the Sunday of All Saints of Antioch together with our Patriarchate. It is through their faithful witness that we have been welcomed into the fullness of the Body of Christ in which divisions according to nationality, ethnicity, and culture have no legitimate place or spiritual significance.  The miracle of speaking in diverse languages at Pentecost shows that the transforming power of the Holy Spirit enables all people to fulfill their basic human vocation to become like God in holiness.  The first Gentile church was in Antioch, where “the disciples were first called Christians.”   As His Eminence, Metropolitan SABA recently wrote, the Antiochian Church has always been a multicultural and multilingual church.  Its “freedom from ethnocentrism made it the first Orthodox church in North America to open its doors…to converts to Orthodoxy.”[1]  We are obviously deeply indebted to those through whom we have heard the Lord’s call, “Follow Me.” The ministry of Antioch proclaims this calling not to a select few but as the vocation of all who bear the divine image as unique, irreplaceable icons of God.

 

To gain the spiritual strength to respond to this calling, we must grow in humility and find healing for our souls.  From ancient times, Christians have observed a fast after celebrating the great feast of Pentecost.  After the festive seasons of Pascha, Ascension, and Pentecost, we now focus on the struggle to become fully receptive to the healing power of the Holy Spirit.   The Apostles Fast concludes with the celebration of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, who are shining examples of what it means to become radiant with the divine glory.  The stories of their personal transformations should inspire us, for both had sinned greatly, with Peter denying the Lord three times and Paul having fiercely persecuted Christians.  Nonetheless, they became foundational pillars of the Church by the power of the Holy Spirit.  They truly were healed.

 

            We might refuse to see how they are examples for us due to a misplaced sense of humility.  It may seem presumptuous to put ourselves anywhere near the place of those who first heard the Savior’s call: “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”   The point is not that we are somehow to repeat the unique roles of any of the apostles, but that we must learn from their examples how to become fully receptive to the healing mercy of the Lord.  The difficult journeys of all the apostles had nothing to do with glorifying themselves.   Instead, they became living icons of Christ by their humility, for their sins were made clear for all to see.  Sts. Peter and Paul both made the ultimate witness as martyrs, becoming last in this world to the point of shedding their blood for Christ. Contrary to the temptations common to religious people and leaders to this very day, the apostles pursued paths that had nothing to do with exalting themselves above others. As St. Paul wrote, “God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men… To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now.” (1 Cor: 4: 9-13)

 

As living members of Christ’s Body, the Church, we have received the fullness of truth by the power of the Holy Spirit, poured out richly at Pentecost.  We are filled with the same Spirit personally in Chrismation and nourished by the Savior’s Body and Blood in the Eucharist. He has called and empowered us to live each day of our lives as those who participate by grace in the life of the Holy Trinity.  To confess these truths is to know immediately how unworthy we are of such blessings and how far short we fall of living accordingly.  When we recall the Lord’s teaching that “to whom much is given, much will be required,” we should fall on our faces in repentance because of the great responsibility that is ours. (Lk 12:48) The Savior said, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” (Matt. 7:21) He also said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (Jn. 14:15) As the Lord told His disciples, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 5: 20) Struggling to obey the Lord each day in humility is the only way to grow in holiness and follow the apostles to the heavenly kingdom.  To identify ourselves as Orthodox Christians without pursuing this demanding path is sheer hypocrisy by which we condemn ourselves.  We will become the opposite of “fishers of men” if we entangle ourselves in the nets of our passions, such as spiritual pride and the false gods of worldly political and ethnic divisions. Instead of attracting others to Christ like a beacon in the darkness, we will repel them by our refusal to follow in the way of the apostles and saints. 

 

The world so obviously lacks peace today, especially in situations where earthly powers blasphemously view themselves as the highest good and become blind to the humanity of those who threaten their desires and illusions.  As His Eminence has written, the refusal of the Antiochian Church to identify itself with a nation arises from the experience of “living under non-Christian rule since the seventh century [which] exposed the Church to various persecutions. Yet, wherever possible, it engaged with its surroundings, rulers, and citizens of different sects, remaining a witness to its faith and spirituality...” To be faithful stewards of the spiritual inheritance that we have received from our Antiochian forebears, we must follow in their way of freedom “from ethnic and nationalistic entanglements” and maintain “a theology untainted by a fusion of religion and nationalism.”[2]  

 

St. Seraphim of Sarov taught, “Acquire the Spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.”  The Spirit of peace is, of course, the Holy Spirit, through whom we have become children and heirs of God through Christ, regardless of our ethnic, cultural, or national identity. (Gal. 4:6-7) St. Seraphim also taught that “the true aim of our Christian life consists of the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.”  Our vocation is not to serve the false gods of our passions or of the divisions of the world. It is, instead, to become like God in holiness through the healing, transformative presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

 

The light yoke of the Apostles Fast gives us an opportunity to do precisely that, as we humble ourselves before the Savior in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.  That is how we acquire the spiritual strength necessary to overcome the weakness of slavery to our self-centered desires as we answer the calling to become the uniquely beautiful living icons that our Lord created us to be.  Remember that when the disciples first heard Christ say, “Follow Me,” they were doing their daily work as fishermen.  His calling is not esoteric or removed from the mundane realities of life.  We have no lack of opportunities to answer His call today in our families, workplaces, friendships, and neighborhoods, as well as in our parish.  No one else is married to your spouse, is the father or mother of your children, or is the particular friend, worker, or parishioner that you are.  No one else has the vocation to serve Christ in those around you in the unique way that you do. The present circumstances of our lives present limitless opportunities to become fully receptive to the healing presence and peace of Holy Spirit.  None of us lacks anything at all that is necessary to grow in holiness, obey Christ’s calling, and draw others into the life of the Kingdom.  The disciplines of the Apostles Fast will help us gain the spiritual clarity to hear and respond faithfully to that calling, as have all the saints across the centuries.  Let us use these weeks to abandon the nets that would hold us back from doing so.

 

 

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[1] “Antiochian Distinctions,” https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2465.

[2] https://www.antiochian.org/regulararticle/2465